CHAPTER XXIX.

THE COMING OF THE MEDICINE MAN.

Lena Forest’s position in the Blackfoot village could hardly have been worse, for the malignity of two jealous Indian women was turned against her in every possible way to make her suffer.

These two women were Wind Flower and Wide Foot, the wife of Crazy Snake. Wide Foot had been told that Crazy Snake, her lord and master, was to install the new white squaw soon in his lodge, and that was enough to fill her heart with bitter enmity against the inoffensive white girl.

As for Wind Flower, she could not rid herself of the belief that Lightfoot, the handsome young chief who had promised to marry her, was stricken with the charms of the white girl prisoner. And as Lightfoot would probably be made head chief in the event of the death of Crazy Snake, Wind Flower saw herself at some future time dispossessed, as Wide Foot seemed about to be now.

Lena Forest had been placed in Crazy Snake’s lodge in charge of Wide Foot, who was ordered to care for her, and to see that she did not escape; and this Wide Foot was commanded to do on peril of her own life.

Though fear of Crazy Snake, whose anger was a thing to be dreaded, was enough to keep Wide Foot from doing the white girl harm of a serious character, it did not prevent her from annoying the prisoner in many ways.

At times both Wide Foot and Wind Flower would sit in the lodge entrance and make sport of the prisoner, grimacing, giggling at her, making faces at her, even spitting at her, to show their hatred and detestation.

Wide Foot even refused to give her food and water, withholding them until the white girl was fairly famished.

When Bruce Clayton was captured by the Blackfeet and brought into the village, Lena Forest’s prison-keeper tried to prevent her from knowing it. But the knowledge could not be long withheld. The Blackfeet were altogether too jubilant over the capture, and made too great a noise about it.

Lena Forest discovered that a prisoner had been brought in. When she tried to get out of the lodge, and was thrown back by Wide Foot, and then heard Bruce’s loud voice raised in anger at some insult, she hurled Wide Foot aside, and dashed out of the lodge.

She saw her lover seated on a horse, to which he was tied, with a band of howling redskins round him, composed, in large part, of frantic women and children.

But for a guard of warriors the angry squaws would have pulled Clayton from the horse and hacked him to pieces with knives.

Lena Forest tried to reach Bruce, hardly knowing what she did; for this sudden discovery that he was not really dead, but that he, too, was a Blackfoot prisoner, nerved her to the highest pitch of excitement and recklessness. She had no thought of what she would do, or could do, if she gained his side; but was only possessed by an insane desire to get to him, and die with him, if she could do nothing else.

Wide Foot took savage delight in seizing her and dragging her by the hair back into the lodge. But the despondent girl had come to the knowledge that her lover was alive, when she had thought him dead, and the cruelty and abuse of the frenzied old woman made little impression on her now.

True, she feared now for Bruce’s life; yet while there is life there is hope, and that he had been spared thus far gave glimmerings of hope for the future.

When the old trapper, Nick Nomad, was brought into the village there was further wild commotion among the Blackfeet, of which the girl prisoner could not fail to have knowledge.

She was sure that Bruce still lived, and was held in some of the lodges.

She saw the trapper on his rawboned horse, as he was conducted past the lodge entrance in a sort of triumphal entry made by Crazy Snake himself; and from the shouts she knew that some big chief had arrived and guessed it was Crazy Snake. Then she saw Crazy Snake, and was sure of this.

Throughout the remaining hours, until darkness came, the girl prisoner tried to think of some means by which she might release herself and the other prisoners.

The wariness of the old squaw had increased since the coming of Crazy Snake. No more did Wide Foot beat and abuse the captive, a thing she feared to do now, lest the vengeance of Crazy Snake should descend on her.

Lena Forest listened to the thumping of the drums in the council lodge, and to the fervid oratory of the warriors after nightfall. She knew that things of importance were being discussed in that big lodge, yet she could tell nothing of what was being said, even though much of the talk reached her ears, for she knew not a word of the language. Held close now under the eyes of the old squaw, the girl crouched in the half-lighted prison lodge, listening to this commotion.

Dogs barked, and papooses and squaws talked in the midst of the lodges. Warriors hurried to and fro, and Lena believed that scouts and spies were passing in and out of the village.

All of this made her think that perhaps white men were near, whom the Indians feared; and she thought of Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill, for whose coming she now prayed.

But when at length Buffalo Bill came she had no thought that he was a white man.

The daring scout had made his entrance into the village in the most natural way, riding into it on the back of an Indian pony, arrayed in a medicine robe and blanket, painted until his features were concealed, and with his mustache and imperial hidden beneath the folds of the blanket which he kept muffled up around his chin.

Only the upper part of his face, wonderfully striped with paint, his feathered hair, and his eyes could be seen.

He announced his presence, before entering, by a series of wild yells, and a rattle of his medicine drum; and when the Blackfeet swarmed forth to meet him, he told them briefly, and in well-chosen Blackfoot words, that he was the medicine man who had been asked to come to conjure away the demons that were making the Blackfeet fall ill and die.

Peril of the most deadly sort confronted him instantly, for Crazy Snake stepped forth, and, looking keenly at him, said:

“This is not Wandering Bear, the great medicine man of the Blackfeet of the Sunken Lands?”

But Buffalo Bill was ready even for that.

“I am Whispering Elk, the Blackfoot medicine man from the far North,” he answered. “Wandering Bear has gone to the Blackfeet of the Sagebrush Valley, where there is much sickness, and I come in his stead.”

Crazy Snake, shrewd as he was, did not doubt that this was an Indian medicine man; but he had met Wandering Bear, and this man did not resemble him.

Buffalo Bill, on his Indian pony, was conducted toward the council lodge. Before it was reached, he was asked to stop at a lodge and cure a warrior stricken with measles.

While not believing that he could do anything more, perhaps, than give the stricken warrior hope, the scout descended carefully from the pony and entered the lodge.

The Indian braves, the women and children, and even the suspicious sniffing dogs came close at his heels, filling the lodge which he entered.

The sick man, his face lighted by the leaping fire of the lodge, which had been stirred into new life, looked appealingly at the supposed medicine man.

For a minute, in the midst of a great silence, Buffalo Bill postured before the sick man. Then, with a quick motion, and some shouted words, he stooped and drew from under the skins that covered the sick man the stuffed skin of a weasel, which he had concealed under his robe. This he threw on the ground with a yell, and then beat and tore it into fragments, casting the fragments into the fire, that the Blackfeet might not too closely inspect them.

The Blackfeet yelled in hoarse joy and triumph when they beheld what they believed to be the body of the evil spirit, taking the shape of a weasel, that had vexed and sickened the warrior.

The warrior’s face glowed and his eyes brightened; and there was a certainty that, believing now he would get well, much of the battle against the disease had been already won by him.

As the scout came out of this lodge the girl prisoner, Lena Forest, saw him again; but he was still to her but a medicine man, a horrid and horrible creature, worse even than the hideous Indians who had surrounded her so much of late. She saw him go on toward the council lodge, and heard there the renewed beating of drums, and a repetition of the sounds of Indian oratory.

Buffalo Bill, in thus desperately entering the Blackfoot village, hoped to locate the prisoners, and, later in the night, release them. If he was discovered, his own life would be the forfeit, he felt sure.

The risk was great, but the thing to be gained was great, for it was no less than the release of old Nomad and the other prisoners, thus saving their lives; for he was certain they would be slain by the Blackfeet, if the latter were forced to retreat by an attack of the range riders.

In the council lodge Buffalo Bill tried to conduct himself like a true medicine man. He yelled and danced, and besought the good spirits of the mountains to descend and assist him in driving out the evil spirits that were vexing the Blackfeet. But he did not dare talk too much, and much of his eloquence took the shape of pantomime, in which he used wonderful gestures, always keeping the folds of the blanket over the lower part of his face--which gave him an additional air of mystery to the frenzied Indians.

He discovered that one thing the Blackfeet were anxious about was that he should confer on them some power, by a spell or charm, that would enable them to resist the bullets of the white men, whom they feared.

The scout gave them whatever assurances they desired, feeling that he could not safely do otherwise.

Finally he left the council lodge, declaring that the spirits had told him that, concealed in some of the lodges, were little demons, hid under buffalo robes, and even in the earth, who were working much evil, and he must find and destroy them.

His object, of course, was to pass from lodge to lodge, in order to locate the prisoners, and if possible communicate to them knowledge of the thing he was trying to do.

The warriors streamed after him, and behind the warriors came the women and children, while the barking and sniffing dogs ran everywhere, yelping and snarling.

It did not take Buffalo Bill long to find out that Nomad and young Clayton were held together in a lodge near the medicine lodge.

“Now, if I can locate the girl,” he said to himself.

The braves were crowding round him, and he dared not say a word in English which would let Nomad and Clayton know who he was, and his disguise and his acting were so good that they did not recognize him. But he contrived to make himself known to old Nomad by a few words of Spanish, and he saw the old man stare in confusion and astonishment.

In a little while he found Lena Forest, crouching in the lodge where she had been held from the first.

At the entrance to this lodge stood old Wide Foot, who fell back when the terrible medicine man appeared before her.

Lena Forest started up, frightened by the entrance of the medicine man.

Not daring to use English, the scout said a few words in Spanish, wondering if she would understand. She uttered a cry of amazement, for she understood him--a cry which was fairly forced from her by her wild astonishment.

Buffalo Bill poked and peered, said a few words more to her in Spanish, the Indians thinking them words of invocation which they could not be expected to understand, and then he retreated.

As he did so, coming thus out of the lodge, he heard wild yells, and a rushing of feet. And then before him, bounding along, his eyes blazing and his whole being wrought to a frenzy, he saw the medicine man whom he had captured, and whom he was impersonating.

With yells of rage the medicine man rushed upon him, denouncing him, and screaming to the warriors that this was a white man, and must be beaten down and captured; that he was the terrible Long Hair himself!

It was like the explosion of a mine of gunpowder. Instantly, a dozen warriors sprang at Buffalo Bill, tearing the blanket from his shoulders, and yelling with rage as their enemy stood revealed.